NETHERLANDS TOWN PLANNING DRIVE-IN JOINTS FOR MARIJUANA

VENLO, Netherlands - Each day, thousands of giggling, jewel-eyed Germans
flood the streets of this beleaguered border town, where soft drugs are
legal, the locals have lost patience and authorities are planning a
solution that's typically Dutch in its practicality:

Drive-through marijuana stores.

The idea is for Teutonic drug tourists to turn around and go home after
making quick buys at two to-go shops that authorities want to place near
the border.

Venlo residents call the solution McDope.

But the German drug tourists are only half the problem in Venlo. Hundreds
of "runners" -- street reps for more than 60 illegal drug houses -- have
taken over the corners and sidewalks along the Maas River, hawking their
wares to passers-by.

Even if the passers-by happen to be 70-year-old women bicycling to the library.

NO COMFORT

"It's not comfortable anymore," said one such resident, a grandmother named
Helene, who was pedaling through the riverside strip on a recent Saturday
in search of a new detective novel and did want to give her last name.
"Young people keep offering you drugs. It's getting worse and worse and
worse. This is a gone place."

The city of 35,000 in Holland's Limburg region is a half-hour's drive for
15 million Germans packed into the German industrial belt across the
border. After World War II, Germans started flocking to Venlo on weekends
to shop for household staples, which were much cheaper in agricultural
Holland. The Germans called it butter fahrt -- butter trip.

Now their children come for Purple Haze and Wonderboy.

"Hashish?" "Hashish?" There's nothing hushed about the invitations hurled
at those who walk down the strand of tattoo parlors, sex shops and smoky
cafes along the swollen Maas River. A blond pulls her Masarati with German
plates onto the sidewalk, and a crowd mobs her window. The runners are
Turks and Moroccans who live in Venlo, said Hans van Berkum, the leader of
the ruling Christian Democrats party in the city council. Immigrants from
those two countries control the business, he said, which officials estimate
is as much as $40 million a year.

Possession of up to 5 grams of marijuana is legal in the Netherlands.
Authorities in Venlo have licensed five establishments, known as
coffeehouses, to sell small amounts of marijuana to consumers.

German authorities were not immediately wowed by the idea of McDope. They
had been unaware of the magnitude of the problem in Venlo, said Hans-Josef
Kampe, a legislator and drug counselor across the border in the German town
of Viersen. 'At first, the Venlo mayor told us, 'It's only because of you
that we have this problem.' I said, 'Wait a moment. You offered something.
You created this supply. That gave rise to demand from our side.' "

The Germans thought a few hundred of their young people might buy their
marijuana in Venlo, Kampe said. 'When we found out it's actually 2,000 to
4,000 people a day, we said, 'We won't leave you alone with this.' "

This explains why German police officers will soon be walking a beat in the
Dutch town. "It will surely be a deterrent to see your own police officers
watching you even when you are across the border," Kampe said.

BIGGER AIMS

While the German officers will "provide information about what's legal and
what's not," they say they have bigger aims than harassing those who buy at
the border. "We are not going to point binoculars at those who go through
the drive-throughs and stop their cars once they are on our side," he said.
"We are not interested in users carrying 2 grams. The cars we are trying to
stop pick up their supplies in totally different places -- large quantities
of hard drugs is what we are hoping to find."

Venlo is paying for the more tolerant attitudes of the bigger cities in the
west of the country, said van Berkum. "In general, Holland is a more
permissive society -- toward soft drugs, toward euthanasia, toward
prostitution.

"At the borders we suffer more. The people are very much more annoyed than
in Amsterdam. The effect on a small city is much greater than in a bigger
place."

The drive-throughs, which are months away from opening, are part of an
effort named Hector, after the defender of the ancient city of Troy. The
city will take applications from potential proprietors.

Those who operate the five licensed coffeehouses know the money will be
tempting. At least one of them says he is not interested.

Hesdy "Easy Man" Blank, 47, a Surinam native who has run the Rasta Fari
House since 1983, can't see how anything that fast and impersonal could be
good.

"This isn't the idea of the Dutch coffee shops," said Blank, sipping hot
tea in his low-key coffeehouse, as reggaeman Gregory Isaacs played on the
stereo. "You sit down, relax. Listen to music."

Regular customers at his shop know to order, tea, coffee or a soft drink
before they buy marijuana. Those who don't want to socialize and share a
little of themselves, he said, are shown the door.

"Maybe I would open one [at the border], but I want to do more," Blank said.

"We could give them a place under the trees in the summer. So let me make
an Internet cafe, and people, if they have a problem with smoke, they can
meet with drug counselors. We're not going to just throw stuff into cars.
You're looking for problems."